By Arthur Hanna
On the morning of the 3rd of October, Hampton’s U14A rugby team woke up knowing that they were about to take on rivals, King’s College Wimbledon (KCS).
The boys arrived at 9:00 am and went through some classic warmup drills, including passing, tackling and plays which they were going to use in the all-important match.
The U14A team were yet to pick up a win this season; therefore, they were extremely focused to kickstart hopefully a fruitful season.
Hampton won the toss and elected to receive the kick off.
As KCS started the game, there was a palpable tension around the gathering crowd on the touchline, however this was immediately put to rest by Hampton’s number 8, Luke Bennett who caught the kick and burst through the flailing tackles before his rapid acceleration and pace took him away from the opposing defenders for an early try.
Then, Hampton’s fullback and captain, Fred Gey van Pittius added the conversion to make it 7-0 to Hampton.
A dream start for the hosts!
There was no room for complacently though as KCS began to grow into the game after this initial setback and were dominating possession before their centre made a burst through the Hampton defensive line and scored under the posts to level the scores.
KCS showed no signs of stopping either, as a combination of well worked attack and Hampton ill-discipline at the breakdown kept the visitors on the front foot.
After some well worked attack which tactically manipulated the Hampton defenders, KCS scored out wide!
The conversion fell just short and at half time, the scoreboard read 7-12 to KCS.
In an effort to overturn this KCS advantage, Hampton made some changes, which included the return of Kaarthikan Mayouran to rugby!
Fred Gey van Pittius got the second half underway with a superb chase from the kick from Hampton’s leader and he made a crunching tackle to turn the ball over.
Before KCS knew it, Dylan Turrell went over the line under the posts and Hampton had regained the lead in this back-and-forth match!
14-12.
Hampton kept this control of the game going and they worked to the wing well after some immaculate passing from the Hampton backline, including fly-half Arthur Hanna with a skip pass.
The ball found its way to Kaarthikan Mayouran who delivered one of his trademark finishes in the corner which was met by a huge roar from the Hampton players and the crowd as Hampton extended their advantage.
However, the conversion fell agonisingly short.
19-12.
This game wasn’t over as KCS were on the front foot until some sloppy handing, and the ball was on the floor.
This gave Hampton a scrum at halfway, who brilliantly went down the blindside and made a lot of ground towards the opposition’s 22.
The ball was turned over but more poor handling from KCS gave Hampton another scrum.
After this, Luke Bennett picked the ball from the base and crashed through the KCS defenders to score his second try!
A simple conversion made it 26-12.
In the final few minutes, Hampton looked dangerous yet again in a game which had been one way traffic from half time onwards.
Yet another try made it 31-12 to Hampton, and the full-time whistle was blown to applause from the Hampton supporters.
This was a superb display from Hampton, and they will look to continue this level of rugby in their next, highly anticipated game against local rivals Halliford!
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